


All the Lights Are Faded

by jazzypizzaz



Series: only know you love him when you let him go [2]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: (wink wink), Angst, Death, Gen, Haunted Houses, Horror, M/M, Mild Gore, Miles O'Brien Must Suffer, Mirror Universe, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash, but...... not exactly either of those
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 09:50:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14830032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzypizzaz/pseuds/jazzypizzaz
Summary: Quark, in an attempt to avoid facing past ghosts, runs away on a hastily planned trip off station.Unfortunately for him, he dies instead.Sort of.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Drops of Jupiter" by Train. This would have been titled "Come Back and Haunt Me", except a different [lovely Quodo fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9130150) got there first. ;-)
> 
>  [A playlist to set the mood.](http://suan.fm/mix/rJNrgeViG)

The heat in the runabout has been rising for the past half hour, from optimal Federation standard up to what feels like a Vulcan sauna.

Quark loosens his collar, already having shimmied out of his jacket and vest. “Frinxing piece of space trash,” he mutters. “There’s always a catch.”

He jams pointlessly at the climate controls, then winces as he looks back up. Ferenginar’s sun looms out the port windows, way too bright for how far away the display console says it is. Another broken feature, that’s just great. He’s going to have a stern word with Rinoji for selling him this junk bucket when he returns to the station.

If he ever does return, that is.

The temperature must be hot enough to rival the old Terok Nor ore processing center by now.  Quark’s head swims from the heat. He steadies himself against the console, but still almost falls.

No… it’s not in his head. The ship is shaking. There are odd hissing sounds from the engine room. Various metal plates clatter, reverberating throughout the tiny ship.

Definitely not a good sign.

“Computer! What’s happening! Computer, autopilot away from the sun, TOP SPEED.”

Silence. Quark bangs several buttons on the console, but as he has no idea what the problem is or how to fix it manually, this, predictably, accomplishes nothing.

He should have taken Nog up on his offer to teach him basic mechanics. Too late for that now.

The shaking ship tosses Quark to the floor.  He scrambles, screaming, towards the transporter pad. Since it’s located near the center of this ship, it might be more insulated -- both from flying detritus and from the heat surge.

Quark crouches. He clenches his hands over his ears for protection.

All the liquid in his body seems to have turned to sweat. It’s worse than that time several bored Cardassians trapped him in a vent near the ore processing kiln as some sort of twisted prank. Not that Quark would rather be on Terok Nor right now, but at least he had survived that.

This experience, he’s not so sure about.

Several consoles on the bridge explode. Sparks rain down across the bridge.

Quark closes his eyes and recites a desperate plea, begging in self-interest one last time.

“Blessed Exchequer, whose greed is eternal. May you accept my consistent bribes as admittance to the Divine Treasury, and may my accumulated wealth impress the Celestial Auctioneers. Please allow me, your most humble and devout debtor, to grovel at your feet until my admittance is accepted.”

This is it. This is the end.

Blue light arcs across the transporter pad. A shot of hot electricity rushes through Quark. He arches his back and shrieks in pain.

Then everything goes dark.

\---

“He’s coming back.”

That’s what Kira said, a couple weeks ago. These days, with all the post-war rebuilding efforts stressing her out, it was rare enough she entered the bar in a good mood or ordered an alcoholic drink that Quark had been immediately suspicious. But then Kira leaned over the bar, giddy smile on her face, and told him this.

A small tapeworm wrapped itself around his stomach and tightened in unconscious expectation about what exactly this statement meant.

When she confirmed his suspicions, it was a bucket of ice water dropped over his lobes.

Three days after that, Quark had secured both a ship and a business opportunity that required his presence off station.

“Odo’s agreed to fill in for a couple months as interim security chief. He’s coming back here. To us!”

That’s what she had said, smiling at Quark like this was _great_ news. Like this was what he had been waiting for this whole past year. Like she _had_ to be the one to tell him, and now awaited Quark’s ecstatic rejoicing.

Like they were in this together, both eagerly waiting for Odo’s return, on equal terms.

“Odo,” she said, then “back here”, and the words rattled around the concentric ridges of Quark’s lobes, circling the outer helix before finding their way into his brain.

It occurred to Quark, then, that Odo was the only real reason he was still hanging around the station. Well that, and because he didn’t know where else to go. But it certainly wasn’t for DS9’s piddling post-war business opportunities.

“Did you hear me?” She grabbed his arm, surprised and worried at his lack of response. “I thought you would want to know. I thought you would care.”

Well, he didn’t. He didn’t care.

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you.” Quark made a half-hearted gesture towards his more-than-adequate-sized lobes, then wandered off in a distracted daze towards the bar’s storage room, on the excuse that they were running low on Saurian brandy.

Never mind that for the past year Quark had barely recognized any of the faces on the station anymore, or that the three head security officers since had quit from the stress of such a chaotic job. Nevermind that none of those officers had that special knack for either thwarting Quark’s more profitable schemes or stopping more dangerous elements from interfering.

Sure, Quark had a professional appreciation for Odo’s dependability and expertise. But Odo had made his decision, and he left without looking back, and so Quark was very happy to move on to new challenges without him around.

Now Odo thought he could return to the station, wreck all Quark’s plans, only to leave him behind again in a couple months, without a second thought about how this might affect Quark.

And Kira thought Quark would be _happy_ to hear this news.

Quark hadn’t cared at all, and that’s why by pure coincidence and good fortune (and not only because he had hastily dialed up everyone in his contacts list for leads) he had stumbled across a potentially lucrative auction that would require his presence off station for the first week or so of Odo’s return. Ferenginar’s premiere discount swampland was bound to hold investment options, for the discerning shrewd-lobed businessman.

Maybe if Quark got a half-reasonable deal, he would even move his bar there permanently, and then he’d never have to look at that smug playdoh face again.

“Odo’s coming back!”

But maybe it was time for Quark to move on.

\----

However, the predicament Quark then finds himself in isn't quite what he had in mind.

The blackness fades into pain. It shoots through Quark’s nerves like a phaser beam. He feels like he’s been baking in one of those old-fashioned convection “ovens” for days, and _then_ beat up by Brunt’s Nausicaan mercenaries all over again.

Quark rubs his eyes, waking into consciousness, and stars explode through his vision.

He remembers the electric shock in the ship. He remembers the lights fading, and then he remembers what must be dying.

There shouldn’t be pain in the Divine Treasury.

Unless… unless the account of his life had fallen into the red ledgers, and this is --

Quark’s eyes shoot open.

He barely registers the dim cramped room he’s in. The steady sounds of space travel flood his ears, but he doesn’t really hear them. Not what he’d expected from the afterlife.

“Help! Mr. Blessed Exchequer, greedy be your name, you’ve got it all wrong! I beg you to reopen negotiations with me,” Quark yells.

Quark prostrates himself on the ground, wrists raised in a supplicant’s cringe.

Not getting any response, Quark shuffles around on his knees until he finds a door to open. Light from the doorway floods in and Quark winces at the brightness, bracing himself against a wall.

“Quark?” shouts a worried voice. Strange that the Exchequer should have such a distinctly hewmon accent.

“Please sir, please!” Quark whines, now desperate. “If you’ll look closer, you’ll see that any debts you’ve attributed to me are in _Rom’s_ name, so I don’t deserve at _all_ to be in the Vaults of Eternal Destitution. I’ve been faithful for so long. Other Ferengi turn against your Rules, but I’ve devoted my life to them, truly. I have!”

Quark starts hiccuping, then his vision blurs and he realizes he’s sobbing.

“Quark, hey hey calm down,” says the voice, and Quark wipes liquid from his eyes, adjusting to the light to see the inexplicable figure of a doughy, pale human male.

“Chief O’Brien? What are you doing here?” Quark is so taken aback, he forgets his misery, briefly.

Now Miles acts surprised. “Chief? You know it's Captain…”

“Here, I’ll help you up,” says someone new. Quark whips his head around to see the even more improbable sight of a kindly smiling Brunt, hand outstretched.

Quark narrows his eyes, squinting at the hand like it might bite him. “Okay, now I know this isn’t right.”

Brunt helps lift him to his feet. The act of getting upright makes Quark aware of every single ache and throb in his body. He groans, lightheaded, and his knees buckle.

Brunt wraps his arm around Quark’s middle for support and steadies him. “There, there. Easy now, we had quite a scare with you earlier. If you’re hungry, I have some candied tube grubs for you.”

Quark hisses -- his skin is sensitive and burnt -- and Brunt backs away. Quark braces himself against the wall instead.

“Never mind… I know what’s happening here.” Quark sighs deeply. He’s alive another day, perhaps, though he’s not too relieved about it. He nods to the Chief -- no, Captain. “Smiley, I’m trapped in that alternate universe of yours again aren’t I?”

“Well…” Smiley looks to Brunt, hesitant to answer. “Not exactly.”

Brunt -- _Mirror_ Brunt -- gives a strange sad smile, then lifts his tunic. “I died already, remember?”

His abdomen is punctured with a large gaping knife wound. It’s crusted with blood, and the flesh hangs loose to reveal clenching internal organs. But Brunt doesn’t seem to be in any pain.

Quark, for the second time, faints at once.

\---

A splash of cold water and several mostly ineffective painkillers later, Quark sits propped up in a seat on the bridge. He chews sullenly on the offered grubs.

(He’s not entirely convinced that Brunt wouldn’t poison him, but at this point poisoning might be preferable to any of the other horrors that might await him here.)

“So let me get this straight. You have no idea where we are. Because you,” Quark points to weird-nice-Brunt, “are dead -- died? -- whatever. You remember being dead, even though you don’t remember being held accountable in the Divine Treasury.”

Brunt, who is waving a dermal regenerator over Quark’s heat-singed skin to see if it heals, nods. “I told you I’ve never heard of such a place. Where I was, it was more a feeling than a place. But it’s where I’m meant to be. Not here.”

“And you, unlike Brunt,” Quark points to Smiley, who is piloting the ship, “don’t remember dying at all.”

“I was on a mission for the Rebels, when my ship got caught in an Alliance transport beam -- Regent Worf’s. Something went wrong --”

“Clearly,” Quark mumbles.

“And I ended up here quick as a flash, in dead space. No one for light years: no Alliance, no Rebels. I picked up you and Brunt from a failing runabout near this sector --”

“Not me, my _alternate_. My do-gooder refugee-helping drably-dressed alternate.”

“--who both experienced their deaths on Terok Nor before reappearing on the station in this universe. And after they joined my ship, there was a solar flare. You --”

“My alternate. Well, also me, but in _my_ universe.”

“Were caught in the blue arc of energy from transport pad, and knocked unconscious.”

“You mean switched, with my alternate, into this… place. And you don’t know where we are, or how, or why.”

“Right, but I intend to find out.”

“What if we’re no place at all? What if this is it, and we’re dead?”

“You and I could have died from the accidents our ships were in, but I think we'd know if we were. I don’t intend to give up hope just yet.”

“Me, stuck in a universe without any apparent commerce or customers, in constant pain, where Terok Nor exists but Ferenginar doesn’t…”

“That we’ve found so far,” Brunt adds, with disgusting optimism. “And this regenerator might be broken, but if we can fix it maybe you would heal --”

“And only you two schmucks for company.” Quark sighs heavily, then winces as this puts too much pressure on his aching ribs. “Maybe it’s not the Vault of Eternal Destitution, but it sure seems like hell to me.”

They fly on, in uncomfortable silence except for the crunch of the tube grubs between Quark’s teeth, further into the blackness.

\---

The next several days they drift between empty asteroids and distant winking stars at this point, with no answers to be found.

All they have, it seems, is space and time.

“I sure hope Jules isn’t getting up to too much trouble,” Smiley says, idly tweaking the alignment of the navigational array for probably the five hundredth time. “He’s liable to get himself shot without me around to hold him back.”

“Well, if he ends up here, then we’ll know for sure,” Quark grumbles, but regrets it when he sees the worried look on Smiley’s face.

“Wherever here is,” Smiley mutters, shutting down any further attempt at conversation. He refocuses on deciphering the location information within the ship’s controls.

Space, time, and questions.

“Anyone you’re missing back home, Quark?” Brunt pops back up on the bridge. His disconcertingly sincere smile seems stuck on his face. It isn’t natural.

“My vault of latinum.” Quark scowls.

Quark has been gone for long enough without word to anyone that his absence from his own universe should be noted by now.

The question is, would anyone do anything about it? _Could_ anyone? There’s no way for them to know where he is, or evidence to follow.

“But we’re not getting back home. This is it,” he says.

Time and space, time and space. The ship drifts onwards through this strange empty hell.

Would everyone back home assume Quark is too wrapped up in some ill-advised deal to return when expected? It wouldn’t be the first time, though usually Quark would keep in contact about bar management at the very least. His absence should be suspicious, even if no one is worrying.

Odo will be suspicious.

Quark can always count on Odo to -- no. No, he _used_ to be able to count on Odo and his dogged persecution. Not any longer.

“Your brother and nephew are alive, in your universe right? Our Quark, on the other hand...”

Brunt takes out a new batch of replicated bandages and ointments (mirror verse medical tech isn’t very advanced) to tend to Quark’s wounds as they chat. He’s been very attentive over the last several days, and more concerned about possible infection than Quark is.

Not so attentive that he doesn’t press too hard while wrapping up Quark’s bruised ribs, though. Quark hisses at him in the sudden pain.

“I’m _not_ your beloved hoo-manitarian friend, and the only thing I miss is not having to listen to you yapping away.”

It’s been a year since Rom became Grand Nagus, of all injustices, and Nog flew away on his next assignment for the foolhardy and insufficiently greedy Federation.

It's been a year since everyone Quark loves left him behind.

(It’s been a year, and Quark still hasn’t found any listening devices or tracking cameras, no real evidence at all that Odo hadn't abandoned him for good.)

There’s a sudden ache in Quark’s chest that has nothing to do with his bruised ribs.

“Or maaaybe, you have someone you’ve been combing your ear hairs for, someone special…” Brunt smile widens, but still never approaches the perpetual leer that the other Brunt has. Somehow that makes it more horrifying.

Quark fumes and sputters. “You were in love with your universe’s Ezri, wasn’t that it? Well, I can tell you she didn’t waste two minutes being sad about your death.”

“I know this whole ordeal has been hard for you, but as a friend --”

“We’re _not_ friends.”

“I am asking you not to say another word about her. I mean it --”

“In fact, as soon as you were gone, she sold you out!”

A loud BANG startles the two Ferengi. Smiley rubs at his temples, his other hand clenched on the console he just hit. “Please, Quark, can you shut up for once.”

“Me?!” Quark drops his jaw, aghast. “This weak-lobed _fool_ is the one --”

“I don’t care who started it, I can’t hear myself think. I told you I have a hunch --”

“And I told you I don’t like the sound of that,” Quark gripes. “Hewmons don’t have the proper lobes for hunches.”

“--that we have to find Terok Nor. I know the computers and equipment systems on that station like nothing else.”

Quark opens his mouth to protest, but Brunt beats him to it. “I’ve already said I don’t think it’s a good idea to go back there.”

“But it’s the only place we know exists for sure, in this universe,” Smiley says. “Might I remind you of our luck so far.”

“I was only on the station a moment before I left with Quark, the other Quark I mean, and he was sure in a hurry to get out of there. We have no idea what trouble to expect.”

“Wandering around the galaxy is getting us nowhere. Now, if we could just _find_ the station, whatever else we come up against I know that if I have access to station equipment, I could rig something to get us home. Back where we belong.”

Odo is likely on DS9 by now, Quark realizes with a start. Which is fine, because Quark isn’t. As planned. Sort of.

“Home home home,” Quark grumbles. Between the quiet unknowns of space and the dangerous unknowns of the station, he knows which one he prefers. “That’s all you ever talk about, going home.”

Quark doesn’t want to hear anything more about _home_.

He’s had a lot of time to think, in the monotonous void they’ve been travelling through, and he’s come to realize how everyone on the station -- his best customers through the horrors of the war, his family, people he even thought were his friends -- all have their own concerns and lives, none of which _truly_ require the service of their local long-suffering bartender.

There’s no one left who will miss him. Who needs him. Not really.

Not much incentive for a return.

"Well I’ve got to try, at least.” Smiley clenches his jaw. “And if you’re not going to help, then all I ask is some silence.”

“Whatever.” Quark slumps back in his chair to stew in his misery.  "Knock yourself out."

Blackness and the occasional star, that’s it for light years in all directions in this place.

Over the next couple days, Smiley works hard at new formulas and mechanical repairs to aid in navigation. Brunt provides them all with snacks at regular intervals, reminds Smiley to take breaks, and cares for Quark’s wounds.

Quark, on the other hand, does nothing but taking up space and complain. It’s a wonder they haven’t thrown him out the airlock by now.

“You never mentioned…” Brunt says with a pensive look on evening, as he helps wrap up Quark’s throbbing ribs. “When you left the station, back in your universe, where were you headed?”

“Away,” Quark says. “Anywhere but there.”

\---

Before too much longer fortunately -- or unfortunately -- Smiley’s focused persistence pays off, and they find it. They find this universe’s Deep Space Nine.

It takes almost a full Bajoran day to get there. Despite that all the known pieces of their universes aren’t in this one, Smiley manages at last to realign the navigation system to triangulate their position based on what _does_ exist. They’re running low on deuterium though, and can’t risk full speed warp for too long at a time.

But lo and behold, when they enter the correct sector, the station Terok Nor (or whatever you call it) comes into glorious view.

Apparently it’s a constant fixture across dimensions, though this one is rather more beat up than either of theirs. To see that Cardassian monstrosity hanging there within their ship’s reach is a curious morale boost for all of them -- after all, if this were hell, wouldn’t this last hope be gone? -- but Quark quickly sinks back into gloom. What is it but a hulking mass of metal and disappointment, anyway?

There’s also the matter of the tentacles.

As they near the station, it becomes apparent that their plan isn’t going to be easy (like it ever was). As if Terok Nor doesn’t look ominous enough as it is normally -- like the exoskeleton of some arachnoid monstrosity -- it currently has giant writhing snakes curl out from a pylon near the only undamaged docking bay. They swish and flick in angry movements, lashing out at something nearby.

(Angry? How does Quark know it’s angry? But then again, what giant space kraken _wouldn’t_ be angry to be tangled up in a space station?)

“Oh look! That’s Klingon. I’m fairly certain that’s a shuttlepod from Regent Worf’s ship,” Smiley points towards the pylon.

Sure enough, a small ship zips like a minnow between thrashing tentacles, dodging their blows. It flies almost out from reach. Then, it does an abrupt one-eighty and heads towards the wormhole.

One long arm of the creature flails out. It curls around the ship. It squeezes, and Quark swears he can hear the crunch.

Smiley and Brunt wince.

“Still think the station is a good idea?” Quark says.

“It’s our only hope,” says Smiley. “Unless you’d rather turn belly up and spend eternity writing a eulogy no one will ever hear.”

“No one but us,” grumbles Brunt, in such a rare slip of irritation that Quark is, for a moment, almost proud. “But if I die here, what happens then? Is it just over?”

None of them have an answer for that.

With the shuttlepod crushed, the tentacles quit their angry writhing to undulate as if responding to a current in a space river. It would be beautiful, except that it’s probably just searching for more prey.

“I say we go for it.”

Quark scowls and shrugs. “You’re the pilot.” As far as he figures, he’s already dead, but if Smiley wants to get them crushed by a space monster, who is Quark to stop him?

“If we sidle up from beneath, maybe it won’t notice us.”

“Which way is beneath, if we’re in space?”

“Does it even _have_ eyes?”

Smiley frowns, but otherwise ignores Quark and Brunt's nervous questions. He pilots the ship slowly, carefully, no sudden movements to catch the thing’s attention before they’re close enough.

They slip within reach and all hold their breath.

The tentacles float, rippling weightless in the vacuum of space, but don’t move toward them.

Quark lets out his breath. Hell or not, he’d still rather live. So to speak.

Up closer, the tentacles are smooth, glowing golden in the starlight. It’s almost familiar… or maybe Quark has lost his mind in the terror.

“Whew. Well that wasn’t so --”

One tentacle curls towards them. Whether part of the creature’s routine movement or whether it noticed them is hard to tell so close up. Smiley cranks the ship hard to starboard, zipping in and out. The ship lurches, and all their stomachs along with it.

Brunt falls hard onto the deck, hitting his head on a console, and doesn’t get back up. Quark feels close behind him.

Smiley dodges and ducks in a madcap dash, before docking in an effortless swoop.

“Not bad for a self-taught pilot, eh?”

Quark grips at his abdomen. He shouldn’t have ate all those grubs.  Brunt blinks his eyes open, wincing in pain on the ground.

No one moves.

But neither do any tentacles to swipe away the docked ship.

“Alright, we’re in the belly of the beast,” Quark says. “Now what?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is basically a tour through a haunted house... enjoy!

The trio hold their breaths and creep through the eerie darkness.

Lights flicker on and off, dimmer even than during the Occupation. Twice while heading through the corridors, exposed cables overhead explode with a rain of sparks right where they were about to step and Smiley has to slam them two out of the way against the wall. Every small noise amplifies and distorts, echoing through the cavernous empty hallways.

As they head into Ops, there are the sounds of: footsteps both distant and near, a strange whooshing, something scuttling through the vents, and --

“Did you hear that? I heard something. Like a whispering. Do monsters whisper?” Quark hisses, stopping short in the doorway to Ops. Brunt pulls him through so the door will close behind them. Smiley beelines towards a computer console. “Was that you Brunt? Are you _still_ groaning about your head? You don’t hear me whining about my burnt skin or my broken ribs or --”

Brunt groans, not (only) because of his physical pain. “Don’t I? We’ve shown you nothing but kindness and patience--”

“Hssst! Quiet… there it is again!” Quark cocks his head. “Like someone muttering under their breath. Groaning. It’s trying to find us...”

“Then we don’t let it.” Brunt takes position in front of the closed door, phaser drawn, and gestures for Quark to guard the turbolift and transporter pad. Quark follows along, but his own phaser shakes in his hand.

Smiley jams away at the computer, asking diagnostic questions aloud to get the system in working order, and this drowns out the smaller sounds elsewhere.

The noises still nag at Quark, something he can’t place about it. All these snatches of whispers with no source… Quark is strangely reminded of his own Deep Space Nine in recent months, when at least once a week he’d swear he’d heard Odo’s low grumbly tones.  His heart would leap at that lovely sound, and he'd find himself wandering over in a trance, only to then realize it was a disgruntled Bajoran complaining about the vintage of his spring wine or a crusty old Klingon chewing out a wayward ensign.  He'd be reminded all over again what was missing.

The ghosts of Odo and days past haunted every corner of his life on the station, but here there might be _actual_ ghosts. Or worse.

“Did you know once Nog went to Empok Nor, and it was all spooky just like this?” Quark babbles nervously. “Crazed zombie Cardassians out for blood, ready to jump out at them from every turn… Only here, it’s a giant tentacled beast, desperate for fresh grub-plumped flesh, ripe for the snacking…”

“We don’t know that it wants to eat us. Maybe it’s just lonely.”

“What? Lonely?! If it were lonely, maybe it would try not crushing spaceships. You catch more tree slugs with sap than with carnivorous voles.”

“Ah-ha! That _is_ promising…” Smiley mutters, squinting at meaningless jibber jabber on the computer screen.

“You _also_ think the vicious monster is lonely? Smiley?” Quark says incredulously.

“What? No I’ve done my best to ignore your rambling.” Smiley continues typing at the computer.

“Well get on with it then,” Quark gripes.

After several moments of no conversation to drown out the station’s whispering and groaning, Quark grows bored and far too tense with waiting for the monster to jump out, so he begins pacing back and forth across the room.

Brunt, ever the steady professional, tries to shove Quark back towards his guard position. A clatter sounds from the adjacent hall. Quark shrieks and grabs onto Brunt, who yelps in pain.

“Get OFF! Your nails are digging into my skin --”

“You’re both going to get us killed if you don’t shut your yaps,” Smiley says, but his own volume rises louder with frustration. “Quark, we’re trying _not_ to attract attention, remember?”

“I see. You wouldn’t mind if it found me, is that right?” Quark’s breaths come fast and sharp. His ribs ache from the sudden movement, and every sound sets him on edge, and now he’s rapidly descending into a panic. “Let’s get rid of Quark! Feed him to the monster! That’s what you’re both thinking, admit it. No one cares if I live or die, except for ME!”

“Shhh!” Smiley shushes. “Or it will find _all_ of us, not just you, Quark.”

“Aaaaarrr…hhkkk...?” A low voice rumbles like thunder through the station.

To Quark’s (somewhat) relief, Brunt and Smiley also freeze at the sound.

“You heard that too, right?” he whispers. No good to be dead _and_ imagining voices.

Smiley nods as he returns to frantically scanning outputs of information from the computer. “Almost got what we need from here… but wait…” He squints at the screen, which is apparently more interesting to him than the threatening scary voice. “Is this even possible?”

Like a creaking door -- “Kkkhhhh...wwwaaaarrrrr…kkk...”

“It said _your_ name,” Brunt, ever the genius, points out. “Is there something you’re not telling us?”

Smiley draws his phaser, readying for danger, even as his eyes stay focused on the computer, straining to absorb all the data output up until the last moment. “Two phases shifted, but there’s another... That doesn’t make sense, that can’t be…”

Quark can’t move a muscle or make a sound; he’s frozen in place.

The voice rumbles closer, chanting Quark’s name. It sounds familiar. Like gathering mist, an association coalesces in his mind, but before it solidifies --

“Quark, you need to hide, it’s getting closer!”

Smiley, face still contorted in perplexion at what he read, blinks a couple times, then stands up straight. “We all need to hide. Or rather, we need a way to travel safely throughout the rest of the station.”

“The only place I’m travelling, is away from that thing’s _digestion tract_ ,” Quark whines.

“Because I now know where we are. And, more importantly,” Smiley taps the console a couple times in a joyful rhythm and smiles wide in triumph. “I have a plan.”

\---

They manage to duck into a jeffries’ tube before the creature tracks them down, the idea being that the creature they saw outside the station would be too big to follow them into such a tight space. There’s crashing and wailing in Ops while they scuttle along the passage, as the thing realizes its prey has escaped.

“First step is to find a set of cables and a toolkit. We’ll check the cargo bays, then the storage closets near ore processing.” Smiley leads the way, mumbling technobabble to himself in between directional instructions.

“So when you said you had a plan...” Quark huffs and puffs as he tries to keep up. He carefully positions himself to crawl between the other two in the tunnel, hoping any surprises on either end will meet his associates first. A cowardly man is a man that lives to cower another day. “You meant gather up a bunch of random equipment and hope you can figure it out later?”

“More of a plan than either of us have. Smiley knows what he’s doing.” Brunt attempts a reassuring tone, but there’s an impatient edge to it.

“We’ll use the transporters in Ops: fuse the transportational energy, decouple the overflow interface, what next… Ah, of course! We’ll need a reality phase shifter. That should work.”

“In a language for the rest of us please…”

“Oh! Oh, you want to --” Brunt says. “To, well, shift phases in a manner of speaking. Clever!”

Smiley huffs in amusement. “I thought so. Not the phases you’d normally refer to, _but_ … in this circumstance.  We have another problem, however; I’ve no idea where you’d find one around here.”

“What shifter? What phases? And what reality, again?” Quark gripes.

“Like I said, it’s as if there are two phases of reality --”

“And don’t start in on that windowpane nonsense.” Quark’s head hurts enough from fear without _science_ to muddle it further.

“It’s the best metaphor I’ve got! Normally, or as far as we know at least, we have our two universes. Your bright and shiny one --”

“And your scary opposite one.” Not too different from this place, but more crowded, Quark thinks.

The groaning of the monster fades, but it's still audible from time to time, as it moves in an opposite direction from them, for now. Footsteps and indistinct humanoid yelling also rattle from the hallways; they’re not alone on the station, although whether their company is friend or foe, Quark doesn’t care to find out.

“And the two universes are like mirrors of each other. Except right now instead of reflecting back at each other, like the surface of a pond, they’re out of shift. There’s a gap between them, like a windowpane with two pieces of parallel glass.”

“A gap that everyone here has fallen through,” Brunt says, then gestures at towards the stab wound in his gut as Quark glances backwards at him. “And it seems to be easiest for dead souls, since we were on our way out of our universes anyway. Although a power surge through the transporter could have caused a similar reaction for you and Smiley.”

“And now, dead or alive, we’re all in some twisted pointless purgatory together. Boo hoo.”

Another reason to despise Odo -- if it weren’t for him, Quark wouldn’t have gone to Ferenginar, wouldn’t have gotten caught in a solar flare, wouldn’t be stuck here.

Odo is probably living it up with a peaceful efficient tour of duty on the station right now: yelling at people for running on the Promenade, making out with Kira, celebrating Quark’s disappearance...

“ _But_ I think we can collapse that gap. SLAM the window panes back together, one sheet of glass again.” Smiley bangs on a nearby wall to emphasize his point, and Quark jumps out of his miserable thoughts, banging his own head on the ceiling.

“Except that you can’t close it while we’re all still here holding the ‘gap’ open. So we’ve got to sell the fungus farm before we’ve even acquired it! A noble pursuit in business perhaps, but with our lives…?”

“Right, well we still need a phase shifter, if we could only _find_ one... But that’s impossible. Or maybe we could make our own…” Smiley drones off into technical brainstorming again.

They turn down another long passage, and the end seems so far away. Quark hopes whoever invented turbolifts earned a fortune; he’d deserve it.

Quark pauses in the tunnel, suddenly very tired. Brunt almost smashes into him on the abrupt stop.

“I know your knees must hurt from all this crawling --”

“What? My knees could do this all day.” A ‘kneejerk’ response. “It’s my _ribs_ and my _burnt skin_ and the constant fear --”

As if on cue, the creature’s groans rumble through the tunnel. “Noooo faaaazzzzerzz! Nooo runnnning! Roooluvv obeeedenssss --” and fades into incoherence. Its roars are followed by that humanoid yelling, and the distinct ring of phaser fire.

As much as Quark doesn’t want to be scuttling in this tunnel right now, he wants to be down there in the open halls even less.

“But we have to keep going, okay?” Brunt says, but his reassuring tone is paired with a look that says what he’d really like is to do is push Quark out of the jeffries’ tube where the monster can find him. Or at least throttle Quark a little. Quark knows that look quite well. And oddly enough it _is_ reassuring to see it on weird-nice-Brunt for once.

Quark heaves a sigh, and they continue onwards. “We’re doomed either way, so why not.”

“No, don’t talk like that! We’re going to make it through if it kills us. Again.”

Make it through where? And for what reason? Quark doesn’t bother asking aloud. This empty echoing station holds about as many opportunities and friends for him as his own universe’s.

“Hah.” Quark isn’t laughing. “Very funny. You should do stand-up at Vic’s. You could charge a couple slips a head with material like that.”

“Vic? The Terran Rebel fighter? Stand up with him against the Alliance, or...?”

“Nevermind. _Alternate_ ‘verse, what a load of--” Quark stops again as a couple connections fall into place in his head. This time Brunt does smash into him, a literal headbutt. Quark shoves Brunt off, then clutches his ribs with the abrupt movement. “Watch where you’re pointing that bloated noggin of yours!”

“Shhh!” Smiley hushes them through frustrated, gritted teeth. He jerks his head towards the ladder leading downwards in front of him. “We’re here.”

“Wait, wait… One thing. The reality shift-y whatsit. Is that anything like what makes the holoprojector… uh, project holograms?”

“Yes, that’s exactly it, but there haven’t been holosuites on Terok Nor since --” Smiley and Brunt share a glance as realization strikes. “Since a battle with the Alliance destroyed them. But here…”

“Who knows what’s here.”

“And with the holo-whatsit, we have a chance?” A strange warm trickle of what feels almost like hope runs down Quark’s spine. “We’ll have to stop by the bar to check. Great, more crawling.”

\---

The monster creaks and wheezes throughout the station, its long drawn out exclamations only occasionally congealing into distinct words -- most often “Quark” or the oft-repeated “roolzuv”. Keeping an ear out for its proximity, the trio manages to dip in and out of cargo bays to obtain the necessary items. There are several near misses, when the monster heads in their direction, but distant phaser fire from others aboard the hollow station keep it at bay. It almost feels like an alliance, though they haven’t yet crossed paths.

At long last, after several hours of gathering equipment and one long rest for Quark’s bruised ribs later, they approach the last potential item.

They exit the jeffries’ tube, leaving their goods there, out onto the Promenade and quickly, quietly, head across it into the bar.

Quark leads Smiley and Brunt over to the holosuite controls and opens the panel to reveal a vaguely familiar conglomeration of odd parts. There’s a contraption with spindly legs like a metal-spider clamped onto tangle of multi-colored wires, which are in turn wrapped around a wooden spoon propping up some metal sheeting. A metal shot glass balances on top of that.

“Oh huh, that’s where that went.” Quark picks out the shot glass, but yelps and drops it when it electrocutes him. “Profits only know what Rom has rigged up in there, but it looks more or less like usual. He’s always been so messy…”

“Rom?” Smiley jerks his head in confusion as he parts a curtain of dangling wires. “Why would Rom be in here? No one to shoot, no one paying him for blowing up Terrans--”

“My universe’s Rom, with my universe’s holosuites. Good for nothing dullard, but he did always manage to fix my equipment with only mildly painful upkeep costs.” Quark frowns. He’ll never see Rom again, probably. Even worse, with Quark stuck here presumed dead, Rom will inherit his meager savings. Not that Rom even needs it, now. “When he isn't too busy screwing over Ferenginar playing Nagus, anyway.”

Brunt looks mildly alarmed at that news. “I’m not even going to ask… So this what it’s _supposed_ to look like? And can you find the phase shifter in there?”

There’s a scuttling noise from inside the walls, then what sounds like a cough. Quark jumps, swinging his phaser wildly. Voles maybe? With asthma? Quark keeps an ear out, but whatever it is stays silent again. Probably nothing.

“Don’t ask me; I’ve never touched the thing. I spend all my waking hours managing my staff, writing the menu, scheduling the holosuite time, making sure everyone is having a grand time while I’m squeezing them for the last strip… Not that I ever get so much as a hint of gratitude…”

Brunt tactfully chooses to ignore Quark’s complaining and takes to helping Smiley remove unnecessary parts instead.

Quark scowls and takes stock of the bar.

There’s a hollow in his gut at the sight of it: all those empty dabo tables and bar stools. Normally a place of liveliness and laughter and most importantly _latinum_ , but at prime evening hours, there’s not another soul to be found besides the three of them.

“Find… Quaaark…” The voice rumbles, so loud now it feels like it’s coming from everywhere.

 _Almost_ no one else, although Quark doubts the creature is thirsty for synthale. Not that Quark even owns _this_ bar, technically, although… if no one else claims it, and the creatures doesn’t eat him first…

“Uhhhh, are you two done in there yet?” Quark whispers. “It’s coming!”

“Just another minute…” Smiley says.

“Yeah yeah, I’m dead weight and you don’t need me grousing in your ear. I get it, but at least hurry!” Quark whines.

“If the monster wants you, it might not harm _us_ ,” Brunt says. “Maybe Smiley and I should take our chances and keep looking for the shifter. We certainly can’t risk going out onto the Promenade right now...”

“And what about me?”

Brunt bangs on a nearby wall, listening for an empty sound. “Aha!” he shouts in victory. He rips a square of metal plating off the wall to reveal a smuggler’s tunnel.

“But what if it’s _in there_?” Quark whines. “I heard something earlier.”

There’s a clatter from the second level, and groaning from the hall outside.

“It’s not!” Brunt shoves Quark inside the tunnel despite his protests. “You’ll have to take a gamble of your own.” Then he jams the metal back in place, coating Quark in darkness.

Quark takes a moment to adjust from the indignity of being thrown around by wimpy alternate Brunt, of _all_ people, and massages at his tender ribs, which hadn’t taken well to being shoved. He refrains from whining in pain from the way his burnt skin flares -- or in fear from the situation.

Outside in the bar, the monster crashes through the doors, and not a moment too early. It knocks over tables and yells, the words more distinct now that it’s only a heartbeat’s distance away.

“Vandaaaalism! Sabotage! Quaaaark… knows?”

Smiley yells, “He’s not here! Don’t come any closer; we’ll shoot if we have to!”

The sharp buzz of phaser fire rings out from beyond the tunnel. Electricity sizzles as light fixtures explode, and crashing sounds from smashed bottles of liquor. So many lost profits... A cacophony of voices alternate between yelling exclamations and obscenities; new people have joined Smiley and Brunt in battling the beast.

Quark chants quietly to himself: “It doesn’t know I’m in here, and it’ll eat Brunt instead. Win win! I’m okay, I’m hidden, I’m okay…”

But not hidden, it would seem, from a clattering through the tunnel towards him.

Quark breathes in short gasps, clutching his chest. “Outside or in? Where am I safe? I’m going to diiiiie!”

“Uncle Quark?” says an improbable and incredulous voice from down the tunnel. “You’re back!”

“Yooooou’re doomed,” says another, drawing out the vowels in particularly distinctive way.

A penlight flashes on in the newcomer’s hand, illuminating two glittering ominous smiles. The shadows of the light elongate and contort the otherwise familiar ridges of their faces, their otherwise normal-sized lobes.

“Wheeere…. Quark…” The monster roars. There’s the sound of flesh thrown against the floor.

Quark holds up a finger to the shaky grin plastered across his face, miming a “shhh!” A vain attempt to convince this new threat to hold off at least until the previous threat has passed.

Mirror verse, or apparently not, this place he’s stuck in seems to have absorbed far too many of his universe’s alternates.

Rom and Nog exchange leering grins, then push at Quark’s backside towards the metal plating of the tunnel’s opening. Quark screeches, almost passing out from the rough treatment. He claws at the metal walls, trying to stay put.

“Are you crazy?” Quark yelps. “I’m your brother! I’m your uncle! Don’t do this to me!”

“Yooooou’re no brother of mine!” Mirror Rom cackles. MIrror Nog snickers beside him.

Quark tries to push away from Rom, but unexpectedly his hand sinks down into Rom’s chest. Rom has a giant hole in him, clean through to the other side. Quark yelps and jerks away, his arm now covered in blood. He crashes into Nog, who in the thin shine of the penlight has a large phaser wound of his own.

Rom laughs maniacally and Nog joins in. Quark flails wildly, hoping at least to scratch their eyes out. They grapple in the tight space, but Rom’s mercenary strength is superior, and they all tumble out into the bar, squinting in the brighter light.

A gigantic creature, _the_ creature they’ve been hearing this whole time, has a hurricane of golden appendages reaching in through the second level entryway. It was forced backwards by the phaser fire, but is still a threat. The surrounding metal of the arch creaks with the force of the creature straining against it. Live wires spark and flare throughout the room, giving evidence of the battle in Quark’s absence. It’s a wreck and nothing has escaped untouched.

“Ha HA!” Rings a joyful voice. Sisko, dressed in Terran rags and covered in third-degree burns and gaping slash marks, shoots out from behind the metal sculpture, along with a flesh-and-blood Vic and Smiley. More dead alternates.

The thing growls in anger, a sound like sandpaper rubbed together. “Terrrrans! Not aaaaallowed! Weapons! Ruuulzuv obediensss --” It flinches away from the phaser fire and retreats back from the doorway, back down the hall.

As it does so, the monster grunts.

Quark’s stomach drops out of his body and he’s suddenly light-headed, but this time not from pain.

That grunt. That particular grunt.

A very familiar grunt, almost a _harrumph_.

Then there’s the sound of skin being dragged against metal, and the creature is gone, for now.

Sisko and Vic scramble towards the door to bolt it shut. They drag some busted tables in front, a vain attempt at security. Smiley stays on guard with his phaser drawn for a moment longer, than rushes over to the holosuite panel to untangle Brunt, who is waist deep in wires and parts. Brunt holds a large metal box attached to the wires, looking triumphant.

Quark doesn’t pay attention to any of this. That grunt still rings in his lobes. He hasn’t heard it for over a year, but he’d never in his life forget it.

“I know what that is,” Quark breathes. “Who it is.”

He stands dumbstruck. Rom and Nog, on either side holding him prisoner, exchange a confused look.

“I know who that is…” Quark repeats.

“Oooof course you know who he is,” Rom snarls.

“That’s the whole point!” Nog growls, shaking Quark.

“It’s… it’s _Odo_ ,” Quark says.

Fear from all the danger then melts into a tugging feeling, a sharp inner ache that has nothing to do with his broken ribs or the tight grip on his burnt arms or these twisted approximations of his family members harassing him.

What could have possibly happened to Odo -- even a dead alternate version -- to make him into _that_?

"And we're going to hand you over to him."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: That this chapter and the next deal with character death, in I think a heavier way than the previous ones. If you want specifics before you read, please message me, but *spoilers* it's gonna be okay.

All time seems to stop, the urgency and terror now distant, as Quark stands staring after where the monster -- apparently the dead alternate _Odo_ \-- had been. The monster who had been repeating Quark’s name as if Quark were as immutable a fact of life to this Odo as his Rules of Obedience.

Not that long ago, about one Bajoran year ago, Quark had thought Odo would always be an intransigent fixture in his life, an oppressive presence that wouldn’t ever quit. 

Until one day he did.

When Odo then had the gall to announce a visit -- as if DS9 were only a stopover and not his _home_ , Quark had thought it was only fair that he be the one to leave Odo this time. Except that in doing so he had inadvertently arrived back on a station, to this. 

Another Odo who another Quark, perhaps, had deliberately abandoned.

“This is my fault. I left him,” Quark says in a trance, mind making intuitive leaps faster than his own common sense can reign it in. “His fault, I mean. It’s his fault.” But he’s not sure if he means his Odo or the other Quark.

"And that’s why weeeee’re going to hand you over to him." Rom licks his snaggletooth, eyeing Quark menacingly. 

That manages to shake Quark out of it. Just because he can maybe somewhat relate to how Odo might feel doesn’t mean he wants to _meet_ him. “You’re going to WHAT?”

Hands digging into Quark’s forearm, Rom manhandles him over to the others. Smiley and Brunt inspect the metal box Brunt found, large excited smiles plastered on their faces, while Sisko and Fontaine watch skeptically.

“Don’t celebrate, he won’t be gone for long,” Sisko says. “He never is.”

“No, it’s this piece Brunt found -- !” Smiley starts.

“Nevermind that, lucky for us look who _I_ found!” Nog says, shoving Quark forward, onto his knees in front of Sisko. 

Quark sucks his breath in with the pain. “Not if you treat me like that, you don’t. And I’m not him, I’m not the Quark you know!” He stands back up, smoothing his clothes, which all the crawling and explosions haven’t treated well. “Look at this jacket -- cost me thirty strips, would he wear that?”

“Doesn’t matter, Odo won’t care,” Rom says.

“Maybe he’s saying my name as force of habit; doesn’t mean anything! What do you even want from me?”

“Bait,” Sisko says with a quirked eyebrow.

“A sacrifice to the supervisor,” Rom says.

“A bargaining chip,” Nog says.

“With my life?” Quark feels sick. At least Nog still sounds like a Ferengi, although this is poor consolation at the moment. “Whatever that thing is, it’s not any Odo _I_ know, and I want nothing to do with him.”

“I say we shoot Quark right now. Kill him ourselves, a ‘reward’ for leaving us alone with that _thing_.” Rom beady eyes flash with ruthlessness. 

“That wasn’t me!” Quark falls into a Ferengi cringe gesture on cowardly impulse, although a warring instinct tells him that he has no need to cower to _Rom_ of all people, even if it is a strange menacing alternate Rom. “Please, please, spare me!”

“And anyway Rom, that solves nothing,” Nog groans. “Stick to the original plan! We hand him over as a distraction so we can kill the beast, and then we won’t have to spend all day crawling through vents.”

Quark’s stomach lurches at these familiar faces, his family and the Captain, all talking without care about his doom. Disgust or exasperation at his presence Quark can handle, in fact he’s quite used to it, but murderous disregard is where he draws the line. 

“What about you?” Quark says to Vic, who is standing stoney-faced with his phaser still drawn and ready. “Don’t you have some inane homespun advice to give to your buddies, about how to kill me best?”

“Advice?” Sisko laughs. “Fontaine isn’t much for chatting. Or ‘buddies.’”

“Unless I’m about to shoot ya,” Fontaine says, smirking.

Oh right, stupid alternates make everything confusing… Except, wait a minute, that would mean...

“Come to think, your Odo wasn’t even a Constable, was he? And the other Quark wasn’t a criminal. He’s got no business with me -- with the other Quark,” Quark says.

“That’s true. I don’t recall if he ever even spoke to Quark… before this place anyway,” Smiley says.

“Oh… you might be surprised…” Brunt murmurs enigmatically. “There were rumors…”

“Wha--?” Quark says.

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Rom says, fingering his phaser. Quark hopes the safety is on, but he doubts it.

“Wait! What if…” Brunt speaks up, looking contemplative. “What if we do set Quark up as bait?”

“I’m listening…”

Quark gasps. Now thisbetrayal is almost a relief. It’s what he’d expect from someone who looks and sounds like Brunt.

“But we don’t hand you over! If that really is Supervisor Odo, I don’t think he wants to kill you, or other you, is what I’m saying.”

“I should have known better than to trust anyone from that twisted universe, least of all _you_ \--”

“I thought you _didn’t_ trust me?”

“--and with good reason!”

“Hold up, hold up everyone.” Smiley holds up a hand. Miraculously, his tone conveys enough urgency for the arguing to die down. “What if I tell you I can get us all back home without anyone dying? 

“Well,” he pauses to grimace at the various gaping wounds of his former comrades, “anymore than you already have.”

“Back home, hmm… A more long term plan.” Sisko grins. “I like the sound of that.”

“Back to _life_?” Nog says, gasping. “You can do that?”

“No, that’s not possible --” Smiley starts, but Brunt elbows him. With the angle they’re at, Quark is the only one who sees this.

“Not yet, is what he means,” Brunt says, “but uhh yes, that’s the idea. We can all come back to life, with your help.”

“Fine,” Rom grumbles, skeptical but relenting at Nog’s nudges. “But we keep track of Quark, Nog and me. Make sure he doesn’t slip away again.”

Quark tries to shake them off, to no success. “Now hold on! Where would I even go, that could be safer than with you lot and many well-aimed phasers?”

“Fine, keep him from bothering me,” Smiley says, with hardly a shrug. The indignity! For some reason Quark’d thought Miles would be a constant in any universe. Smiley eyes Brunt briefly, thinking through the deception, then starts organizing. “First thing is I’ll need your help hauling gear...”

\---

They crawl back through the jeffries’ tubes to Ops. Half the crew have guns drawn -- as protection both from Odo and each other -- and the other half drag cables and other supplies they’d gathered. 

Quark does neither, as he’s having enough trouble moving as it is, and besides doesn’t owe these people anything.

Soon enough, they climb out into Ops and get started with the plan.

Sisko and Brunt assist in rigging the transporters according to Smiley’s instructions. They’re screwing in various wires and cables between the computer console and the transporter pads, while an improbable amount of sparks fly. Fontaine varies between being an extra set of hands, and an extra set of eyes watching out for Odo’s inevitable approach.

Rom and Nog, having no technical skills, guard Quark near the door. Their great idea for the “Quark as bait/distraction” part of the plan is that when Odo barges in, Rom and Nog will force Quark at gunpoint to dash out into the hall. Supposedly this will lure Odo away, buying Smiley more time. Before Odo can maim him, but after he’s lured far enough away, Quark will then dart into a jefferies’ tube or other small space (apparently no one has seen Odo shift any smaller than he is currently). Then Quark will crawl back to rejoin the crew and repeat the distraction if necessary.

Needless to say, Quark protested this “plan” loud and clear, explaining that there was as much chance of him accomplishing any of this -- either by choice or practically speaking -- as a sunny afternoon on Ferenginar, but this doesn’t seem to have persuaded anyone.

Now, to distract himself from this impending disaster, Quark grasps for other avenues of idle conversation.

“So why is he… you know, likethat?” Quark gestures his fingers in tentacles. He had been pacing back and forth in his nervousness, but his ribs had started to ache worse, so now he’s sitting. “That can’t have been caused by my alternate. You know, Odo’s… situation?”

“Same reason I have this.” Rom plunges his hand into his gaping chest wound with a sadistic grin. Quark winces, his stomach lurching. “Same reason everyone else is like they are.”

“Including you,” Nog says prodding Quark’s side with his phaser. 

Quark hisses at him. He tries to bat away the gun with one hand, while clutching his ribs with the other. “Watch it! I’ve stopped complaining about your stupid plan, okay? Least you can do is treat me with a modicum of respect in my final hours.”

Rom snickers. “Respect! Good one.”

Nog rolls his eyes. “The plan is going to work!”

“Whatever… Anyway, so you’re saying Odo’s death made him grow tentacles and left him all…” Quark gestures towards his head, indicating how Odo has become psychologically unhinged. “No one else is affected like _that_. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, he’s a changeling, he’s not affected by anything the same way,” Nog says through teeth bared with frustration. He cranes an ear towards the door, as if he assumes by talking about Odo that means he’ll appear. “It’s not like he’s going to have a phaser blast through his chest, when he doesn’t even _have_ a chest.”

“So it destroyed something else. Left a different kind of hole.” A sudden sadness blooms in Quark’s chest, somewhere buried beneath the persistent terror and frustration and hurt that he’s been stewing in. 

But mostly it feels like more tiredness.

“Hsst!” Nog says abruptly, tilting his head towards the door to listen. “Did you hear that? It might be him.”

“Thaaat’s just the voles again,” Rom says. He licks his lips. “Hear the little feet? Maybe we could kill off a few, for a snack...”

“ _No_ ,” Nog says, clearly used to being Rom’s impulse control by now. “Focus.”

“And another thing…” Quark shudders. He doesn’t want to dwell anymore on either Odo _or_ eating voles. Barbaric, when the replicators spit out perfectly adequate tube grubs. “Why aren’t there more people here? You’re not the only ones who have died in the past several years. Now I still don’t understand what Smiley was droning on about, with windowpanes and realities, but seems to me --”

“Who says there weren’tmore people here?” Nog gives a sly smirk at the shock on Quark’s face. “It’s just that we’re who’s left.”

Quark opens his mouth then shuts it. He decides he doesn’t want to know whether the station’s emptiness is due to Odo, or the ruthlessness of the mirror verse mercenaries he’s surrounded by, or something else altogether. 

Or where the other people could have even gone, if they’re already dead.

Then there’s a rumbling, a groaning -- the sound of vast changeling tentacles sliding across metal and destruction left in its wake. Apparently there’s more than only voles in the halls.

“Ah-ha!” Smiley yells in sudden triumph. “That’s it, that’ll do it. Just a few more minutes...”

Odo’s approach is more audible now, so that even the humans’ tiny lobes can hear it. Nog and Rom grip Quark’s arms harder as he attempts to squirm away.

“ _Hurry_ ,” Sisko says. “He’s coming.”

Smiley wipes his brow and swaps his decoupler for a hyperspanner “Now Brunt, if you’ll ionize the subtronic emitters, while I finish adjusting the holomix on the phase shifter… You’ll all be on your way back to a peaceful oblivion.”

“Oblivion?” Sisko says this quietly, but there’s a coil of energy lurking underneath, ready to lash out. He enunciates every word with this dangerous tension. “You said you could bring us back to life.”

“Um, yes, well, that is what I said…” Smiley tries frantically to both finish the adjustments before Odo disrupts them, as well as cover Brunt’s earlier lie.

Quark’s stomach drops with sudden dread.

“We don’t _belong_ back in the living world, Ben,” Brunt says from underneath the equipment he’s working on, steel in his voice. “We have to go to where we’re supposed to be.”

“That wasn’t the deal.” Sisko bites off every word as he spit this at him, then turns to the other Ferengi across the room. “BOYS! You hear that? They lied to us!”

“Boy?” Nog mutters. “Who does he think he’s calling boy?”

“Thaaat means yooou’re TOAST!” Rom growls to Quark, who whimpers. “No fake bait, we’ll hand you right over.”

“What you’re going to do now,” Sisko says, in a command tone that doesn’t allow for disobedience, “is open the portal to the living world. What I’m going to do, is stand right here with my phaser pointed just _so_ , to ensure that you do.”

But then it’s time; long golden ropes rip through the doorway, undulating through fractured remains of metal sheeting. “Kaaawwwwwrrkk!”

Sisko and Fontaine keep their focus on Smiley, shooting at Odo on occasion to keep him from advancing too much. The tentacles dodge and snake their way in further. 

Rom and Nog whip their phasers around to attention, caught off guard. Quark takes the opportunity to break from their grasp (and yelp in fear). He runs over to Brunt and Smiley, to put more people between him and the monster. “Heeeelp! They’re going to feed me to Odo, thanks to your fat mouths!”

“Hurry UP, Smiley,” Sisko shouts, firing at will.

Smiley groans, sweat pouring off his brow. “I need five more minutes, maybe three. All we need is…” He looks up from the blinking lights on the phase shifter, right into Quark’s terrified eyes. “A distraction. Quark.”

Quark’s shakes his head at what Smiley’s asking of him.

“I need you to go through with the plan as bait. If he destroys the phase shifter… if I can’t finish this now...” 

“No, no no… I won’t do it, I _won’t_ …”

Brunt pops up from beneath a tangle of cables. “Odo won’t kill you Quark, I don’t think.”

“You don’t know that, you don’t know--”

“Trust me, Quark. He -- there were rumors, years ago when we were all alive… there were rumors that the Supervisor and… and you, the other you I mean, him and Quark were… involved.” Brunt coughs. “Or at least Odo was. I can’t imagine Quark was, as much.” 

The information hits Quark in the chest like knife, twisting into old wounds and buried regrets.

“He probably even thinks he loves you, in his own twisted way.”

Explosions from Odo’s destruction ring through the air, as do his rumbling groans and phaser blasts and yelling from Sisko and the crew, but Quark hears none of it. He feels like he’s been shunted to another plane entirely, detached from his body and this vital moment.

 _It_ was _my fault. The other Quark’s fault. It was my fault that this is what he’s become. He cared and I ruined it and it’s my fault my fault my fault --_

“He won’t kill you,” Brunt says, firmer this time, as if restating this will transfer his misguided confidence to Quark. 

(“Ruuuuule of obedience! No Terrans allowed in control center!” Odo growls in long reverberating tones, while the others shoot to hold him back.)

But it’s been over a year since Quark spoke with Odo, and he can’t do it. Quark can’t face this other Odo, can’t meet him and think about what might have been in his own universe, or had already been with these alternates, or what could be if he didn’t have a healthy sense of self-preservation preventing him from stating outright how he feels.

(And also -- he certainly can’t stand straight-backed while facing a giant tentacled monster, no matter _who_ it is. He’s a proud coward in more ways than one, naturally.)

Quark’s face feels wet, but he’s not sure why, and he shakes his head at Brunt.

The transporter pads suddenly flash blue, fizzing with energy. There’s a whirling and buzzing from the phase shifter. 

“Ah-ha!” Smiley snaps a couple of loose cables together, and his curls stand on end with the electrical current. “I did it! I really did it. All you need to do is step through.” 

“Sssssabotage!” Odo yells, and his flailing tentacles attempt to get past the phaser fire. “Rule of obedience!”

An energy surge arcs through some exposed wiring from the cables and knocks Smiley back several meters. Brunt scrambles to help him up, though Smiley’s leg buckles underneath him, jutting out at a strange angle.

“Hear that boys? Quit lollygagging and get over here!” Sisko dashes into the blue light and vanishes. Fontaine is close behind him, and then Rom and Nog dodge a few tentacles to follow.

By the time Brunt manages to help a limping Smiley over to it, there’s another energy surge and a loud popping noise. Distant voices sound, loudly then fade then louder again, and shapes shift in coherence. Someone appears, someone in a blue Starfleet uniform, then disappears before materializing entirely.

“Did Sisko and them really go back to the living world?” Brunt asks, staring warily at the malfunctions.

“No, of course not. Their bodies their souls or whatever wouldn’t survive the journey; only people who are still alive.” Smiley curses as he scrolls through calculations, bracing himself on the computer console and gritting his teeth. “The universes keep sliding out of sync, I just need a second to fix this… Quark, _please_ , contain him!”

“Quuuuuaaaaarrrrrrk!” Odo growls, voice resonating throughout the room so that the walls seem to shake. Quark’s not actually sure if Odo knows he’s here (no eyes shifted on the beast and Quark has been crouched behind a console since the beast entered), or is heading in any direction he hears Quark’s name spoken. Without the phaser fire to dodge, any second now Odo’s erratic appendages could slash through any of them, or the equipment.

Brunt shoots a quick glance at Quark’s sobbing cower, long enough for some inner decision to settle into place. He nods once, to Quark, then darts out from behind the computer console. 

“Supervisor Odo! It’s me, Quark!” Brunt yells. He saunters towards the lashing tentacled beast with a swishy gait and waves his hands dramatically in what Quark, insulted, takes to be a poor impression of himself. 

The tentacles at once all stop their reign of destruction. There’s a tense silence, broken only by a muffled curse from Smiley, and the absence of Odo’s angry groans ring in Quark’s ears. 

One large tentacle drags over to where Brunt stands fearless. It wraps around Brunt, feeling him, holding him up off the ground, up higher toward the ceiling where an amorphous head forms on another appendage.

“I’ve come back for you. I should have never left,” Brunt says.

In the background, a small sound of victory erupts from Smiley. “I’ve got it! Now put him down, Odo, we have places to be.” Smiley, face showing his namesake, drops the hyperspanner and pulls out a phaser, aiming it at Odo.

“Quark?” Odo says, still holding Brunt. The appendage with the head tilts at Brunt, as if perplexed.

“Let me go, and no one will hurt you, I promise. We can be together now,” Brunt says. His voice has a whiny pleading tone, either from fear or -- it occurs to Quark -- in an attempt to mimic what Brunt thinks Quark sounds like. _This_ Quark, the one Brunt’s been listening to whine for weeks, not his do-gooder alternate.

Not the one Supervisor Odo knows.

“Rule of Obedience, no lying to the Supervisor!” Odo erupts, the loudness jarring. “LIAAAAR!!!” 

Smiley flinches, dropping his phaser. Quark put his hands on his head, trying himself to crouch smaller and hyperventilating. In slow motion dread, they watch helplessly as the tentacle with Brunt smashes down into the ground, smashes _Brunt_ into the ground. It rips him across the room, crashing into consoles, crushing his corpse into everything in its wake.

Then, even worse in Quark’s opinion, the tentacle digs into the wall behind Smiley, then down across the transporter pad.

With a dying fizzle, the blue light fades, then shorts out completely.

Smiley’s face also drains of color. “Bloody hell.”

Odo yells a wordless scream of rage, lashing everywhere, ripping out computer consoles and hurling them across the room. He moans, a plaintive cry of pain. Gradually he slows, movements becoming more languid, heavier, and at the same time his mass shrinks down, down, down. It’s as if he has depleted himself, grown lesser from the expense of energy. 

Now a heap of limp coils, not larger that the stack of repurposed cables near the transporter, Odo slinks away down the hall, tentacles dragging flat on the ground.

Smiley lets out a breath.

Brunt’s body lies in the middle of the room, mutilated and broken and completely still.

“He’s dead. Why did he do that? Now he’s dead,” Quark says in a daze. There’s a crushing feeling in his chest. “Even more dead than he was.”

“Now we’re really screwed,” Smiley says.

\---

Quark crouches in the middle of a small room, breathing heavily. He crawled through the jefferies’ tube for some time, hours or maybe minutes he has no idea, then tiredness overcame him, so he lowered himself down into the first room he found.

After Odo left, Smiley had muttered and cursed as he sorted through the scattered components of the transporter contraption, before sitting down in the middle of the detritus, face in his hands, out of ideas. Quark had opened his mouth, but for once couldn’t think of anything to say.

There wasn’t anything else to be done.

Quark then stared at Brunt’s unmoving remnants for a long moment, in shock, but at first he didn’t even think about Brunt. 

Instead, he couldn’t get out of his head Odo’s sudden quietness, the way he had calmed at Brunt’s impression of Quark. How Odo had drank in Brunt’s words as if they were exactly the sustenance he had starved without. The way his barbarism afterwards screamed less of anger than of hurt.

And that had cost Brunt his life. Afterlife. Whatever.

Then, abruptly, Quark hadn’t been able to bear to being in the same room as the body one more minute. 

He didn’t know where he should go, where he could go, but it didn’t matter; all he knew was he needed distance. He needed to remove himself from the situation and the way it all seemed so unreal. He needed it not to have happened, and as long as he kept going, maybe he could find a reason to believe it was all a nasty dream after all.

However, his physical injuries he couldn’t run from, so now he’s huffing and puffing, one shallow breath away from hyperventilation, alone in some forgotten station closet, with a _glebbening_ rain on his face for reasons he doesn’t want to dwell on.

He has all the time in the universe to stew in what went wrong and what might have been. 

Because of Brunt’s stupid stupid decision (because of Quark’s own baggage), he is stuck here forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mirror Quodo relationship heavily based on [softly's interpretation.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9327449/chapters/21135785)


	4. Chapter 4

A couple weeks ago, what feels like a million years ago, Quark had felt like everyone he cared about had abandoned him in the post-war lull. Like they could all move on from the community _he_ had helped create, thank you very much, and yet still expect the Alpha Quadrant’s best bartender (or at least its most enterprising) to be there, whiling away in the bar without their company or patronage. No matter when they got around to visiting again, they’d expect him to be as unchanged as a savings fund locked away in a Lissepian bank vault.

But banks can be broken into, interest rates and inflation can dwindle your accounts, and relationships deteriorate without investment.

Yet in this strange in-between world, incongruous with the horrors upon horrors Quark has otherwise had to endure, three people fought for him, had prioritized Quark despite that he had nothing to trade in return.

Smiley had worked tirelessly to patch together a last ditch effort home, despite Quark’s consistent misgivings, but now, in a sense because of Quark, his work was shattered beyond repair.

However, it wasn’t _really_ Quark’s fault Brunt had been ready to perform such a stupid selfless last act. (If anyone had asked Quark’s opinion brave was just another word for idiot.) And yet here Quark was stewing in guilt anyway. 

Quark hadn’t even liked Brunt -- not his meddlesome snivelling self back home, nor this saccharine smothering alternate -- and Quark certainly hadn’t give any reason for Brunt to like him in return. 

Yet without any wheedling efforts on Quark’s part, not even a customary bribe, Brunt had ran out to meet his end, simply to save Quark from his own cowardice. 

On the other hand, Odo, his Odo, had never prioritized Quark above anything: not his precious laws, not his own uptight nature, certainly not Kira, and in the end not even a puddle of distant family Odo had only just met. As much as Quark loved a challenge, it still hurt. Whatever their vocational relationship -- call it obsession, frustration, or yes even friendship no matter how Odo might deny it -- Quark would never win Odo’s heart.

This Odo, however, despite his consciousness fractured through the aberrations of spacetime, had held on to two core motivations: his Rules of Obedience, and Quark. Even though that other Quark had left this Odo to fend for himself.

Had left him all alone.

Much more alone Quark had felt on Deep Space Nine after his Odo left to the Great Link, despite his wallowing self-pity at the time. But, more importantly, also how Quark felt now, trapped in a strange world, huddled in a broken sobbing mess where no one could save him.

“Hello?” A high voice calls into the room, a familiar voice, a voice Quark hasn’t heard for, oh, about two years. “Is someone here? Are you okay?”

“Dax? J-Jadzia? Computer lights,” Quark says, wiping his eyes and trying in vain to gather himself up into something presentable. He stands and glances around in the dark. There are candles and a lighter he hadn’t noticed earlier on a small stand near him, so he ignites them. “Is this a trick?”

“Quark? It’s me Quark, well it’s Jadzia anyway, just Jadzia, but I don’t think I’m supposed to be here.” She approaches Quark in the dim flicker of the candles, and it really is her, the same lovely face as he remembers, except inexplicably younger, unbolstered by the experiences of centuries. 

“How did you --” Quark stutters, then she comes fully into view and he realizes how dumb of a question that is. He studiously avoids staring at the stab wound in her abdomen, nausea and renewed anguish boiling in his own. “Where did you go, after?”

“I don’t know,” Jadzia screws up her face, looking around the room. “Well, this is where I died -- the beginning of the end anyway.” Quark looks around, and in the candlelight he realizes that sure enough they’re in the station’s Bajoran temple. “Do you know if Dax is still alive, somewhere?”

“Yes.” Quark swallows. With all the mirror alternates running amuck, it hadn’t occurred to him he’d run into anyone he actually knew. “Yes, she’s on Deep Space Nine, in a new host.”

“You met her?” Jadzia’s eyes widen. “What’s she like?”

“She’s not you.” Quar’s throat clenches shut for a moment. “I mean, she’s incredible, a good person. A great one, though confused sometimes. I -- I tried to win her heart.”

“Of course you did.” Jadzia quirks an eyebrow at that, but it’s with affection. “What does she do?”

“She’s a counselor.” Quark doesn’t know what else to say about that, and it’s a little too weird for him talking about one Dax with another (former) one. “So… did you end up in Stovokor after all -- before now I mean?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I want to go back.”

“I went into battle, to ensure you would reach it.” Quark puffs up his chest.

“You?” Jadzia laughs, but stops when Quark doesn’t join in. 

“Worf organized it.” He deflates a bit. “But I helped! I was vital to mission success, I’ll have you know. And we won the Dominion War.”

“Oh, good.” Jadzia’s lip twitches, but she holds back a smirk. “And thank you. That’s sweet of you. And how - how is Worf?”

“Same old stoney-faced uptight prude. If it weren’t for a few smashed holosuites and a few bad decisions with your, uh Dax’s, new host, I’d say he hasn’t even noticed you were gone” 

Jadzia’s face crumples into a sad smile. “He misses me.”

“And yet did _he_ name a delicious, and very expensive, specialty cocktail after you? No, that was me, you’re welcome.” Quark pretends to pout, and Jadzia’s smile widens into a dismissive laugh. This time Quark joins in.

This the game they always play; he flirts incessantly, she acts like it’s all a big joke, and both their hearts are warmed at this small amount of familiarity.

The laughter rings hollow in the dim, empty chapel, however, and soon dies out. “If you’re here with me Quark, are you also --”

“Dead? No, no, I don’t think so,” Quark says. “Well, maybe I am now, basically. May as well be.”

Her brow settles into a deep furrow at Quark’s overview on what has happened so far. When he starts explaining Smiley’s now defunct plan, however, (and despite that Quark can’t give her more than a cursory, glossed over, hopelessly incomplete account of it) Jadzia giggles in delight. 

“That’s ingenious! He widened the gap enough to allow travel; that must be how I fell through... Incredible!”

“Not that it matters now,” Quark says, and he fills her in about Odo’s destruction, glossing over the less relevant details of the event.

“But in theory, the fact that I could fall through means we can all return!” Jadzia says, enthusiasm undiminished by what she seems to misunderstand as a minor setback. “It worked!”

“It doesn’t matter, Odo smashed everything up.” 

“Like the transporters? You have a ship here, it will have its own right? Hmm… those won’t have enough power but we can figure it out. We can make it happen.”

“And the whatsit. Shifty thing, from my holosuites. That’s the only one on the station.”

Jadzia contemplates a moment, then shrugs. “If we can understand the theory, we can build a new one!”

“So?”

“So I understand the theory.” Jadzia smirks. “I took a seminar on the physics of simulated reality at the Academy. The tricky thing will be the practicalities; figuring out what’s on the station that we rig as replacement parts…” She snaps her fingers. “Smiley! You said he’s still here?”

“Uuhh… yeah… but I think if that were possible, he’d have thought of it...”

Jadzia grins widely. “If he’s anything like our Miles, but without the Starfleet training, I assume he could build a whole functional spaceship out of old ductwork and photon cables, but couldn’t tell you the quantum mechanics behind it. Well, that’s an exaggeration; he did discover the bit about gap between the universes after all, but --” 

“But you know more than he does? Even without, you know, the worm?”

“What I’m saying is, we can figure it out together. We can all go home.”

For the first time in weeks, Quark finds his heart growing lighter, like the first _tistering_ showers of spring, rejuvenated in hope and life, and the corners of his mouth twitch upwards into a smile that becomes a grin. “We’re not doomed after all! We’re going home! Me and Smiley and you --”

Then, Quark’s heart sinks back down into the murky depression that it’s become all too accustomed to.

“Jadzia --” Quark hesitates and takes her hands in his. She’s mildly alarmed by his change in tone, but waits for him to continue. He draws a deep breath before venturing on. “Jadzia I’ve missed you so much, we all have, but you should know... even if it works, Smiley seemed pretty sure that anyone who’s dead couldn’t come back to the world of the living. You’d have to go back to Stovokor. Or wherever.” 

The candlelight blurs, and Quark screws up his face, blinking the tears that return anew.

“Quark…” Jadzia says softly. She cups Quark’s cheek with her hand; he leans into the gentleness of her touch, improbably real on his skin. “Oh Quark, I know that.”

“I - I know how desperately you wanted to try the Juicy Jadzia Jamboree, specialty glass not included,” Quark spews the sales pitch automatically, and he’s rewarded from a smile from Jadzia, “priced at three slips and half off at happy hour. Imported straight from Trill to your glass, made from a blend -- a blend of--” He chokes up and can’t continue. _It’s not fair._

“Quark… I left with a lot of unfinished business behind me, but… Talking with you has given me what I needed, to move on. Hearing about Worf, the new host Ezri, the war… I belong back to the place I came from.” 

“But… it’s not _fair_.” 

“No, it’s not fair, but you know what? It wouldn’t be fair for me to come back, either. You mourned my death already, everyone did. You’ve already moved on, even if it doesn’t feel like it sometimes. I belong back in, well I guess you could say in the afterlife, and you have to find your way back home, to keep living. That’s just how it goes, okay?” 

“Don’t leave me again.” Quark sobs and he doesn’t mean to say it aloud, but then he does: “Everyone leaves me.”

“No they don’t.” She cradles him in her arms, drawing him close, warm and real. “Sometimes people have to move on, that’s just how it goes. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, really lucky, they’ll drift back into your life, even if only for a moment. That’s not something to be ungrateful for.” 

She holds him for a few more moments, arms tight around his back, and so he can hear her heartbeat. Strange to think that back home it’s stopped forever. She kisses his cheek, and her lips are warm. Because of their heights and the angle, his face is squished into her chest, which should be a fine consolation, a fantasy long dreamed about, but he’s not even enjoying it truth be told (or at least, not as much as he thought he would). 

He’s too busy thinking of someone else: someone who left and came back; someone who needs him, whether he’ll ever admit it or not; someone Quark is grateful for no matter what.

“I’m happy I got to see you again,” Jadzia says, when Quark calms down. “But I have to go home, my new home. Are you going to be okay?” 

Quark nods, now resolute. “You’ve got one more thing to do, and then you can rest.” There’s a tingle in his lobes -- the one that anticipates a risky gamble, that foretells opportunity amidst danger. “And so do I.”

\---

Quark finds him eventually, intertwined with the brass poles that arc through the levels of the bar.

His tentacles are noodle-thin, a small shadow of the large beast he had been while terrorizing the station, and now a broken huddled thing.

Quark speaks to him in a low soothing voice, trying his best to stay sincere and calm.

“I hate to say it but Brunt was right. When we first saw you, waving those arms out in space, he asked ‘what if it’s lonely?’ I suppose everyone’s allowed to be right, on occasion. But if you ever see him again, don’t tell him I said so.”

Quark approaches, careful to maintain a slow consistent gait so that Odo won’t be startled (and so Quark can run for cover if Odo has a sudden violent reaction).

“Lonely, imagine that! If I’d have told you when we first met that one day you’d miss me so badly that you’d tear apart the station to find me, you’d have laugh loud enough to deafen me. Okay, well, maybe not -- you had less of a sense of humor back then, but you know what I mean.”

Quark, now within a meter of Odo, stops. Several of the tentacles perk up from where they’ve limply draped themselves around the poles. The vague impression of a head forms on one of them, to face Quark.

“Although… that wasn’t even you, I guess, it was a different Odo. I’ll confess,” Quark holds up his hands in the universal gesture of nothing to hide, “I’m not the Quark you knew. I’m from the other universe. You remember that? There was a crossover the same day that you, well…”

Quark trails off, nervous. The appendage with the small Odo-head uncurls towards him, then nudges his face, as if to say _continue_.

“You died, and the other Quark died, your Quark, and then you both ended up here. Together for a while, isn’t that right? Together, in maybe a way that you two weren’t before, that maybe you _couldn’t_ be. He saved Terrans, right? Smuggled them away, but it was your job to keep them in line. Here though, there was no one else, at least at first. You had him to yourself.”

The head-tentacle curves around Quark, circling him several times until it’s wrapped around him like a boa constrictor, although loose enough not to signify a threat. The free end with the head stretches around front to watch Quark as he continues his low monologue. Quark is guessing at most of this, of course, but he figures he’s enough of an expert on Odo and himself, even in an alternate situation, to be able to extrapolate.

“Then I’m not sure what exactly happened, or whose fault it was, but I know he left you.”

The tentacle tightens, as if to show that it can, then loosens. Quark winces, but continues.

“And I don’t know… I don’t know how he felt about you at all, I can’t reassure you about that, but I do know how I feel about _my_ Odo.” Quark giggles; the tenseness of the situation is starting to affect his head. Odo could crush him at any second, if he wanted to. “Funny isn’t it? How everything is flipped? How the other Quark and Odo don’t want us, don’t need us like we need them, but here we are being punished for it anyway? Romance, huh, we never do learn...” The tentacle grows larger, constricting, and the face sharpens, with something building to anger. “Okay! Okay, not that funny. But my point is, I’m here to make a deal, if you’ll hear me out.”

The face zooms in close, so that its nose-bump almost presses against Quark’s. Quark strains himself going cross-eyed, then blinks to refocus.

“Smiley and Jadzia are working out a way to get everyone where they belong. If they do, how does this sound to you: I’ll face my Odo, figure out how to let go and get on with my life, and you’ll face the afterlife, move on to somewhere that has to be more peaceful than this.” 

The rest of Odo slinks down from the brass poles. The head-tentacle gives another squeeze, then unwraps itself from Quark. Quark pauses, hoping that Odo’s movements are a sign of acceptance and not menace. He breathes in relief.

“Who knows -- if the other Quark is anywhere, now, maybe he’ll be on the other side, waiting for you.”

\---

Not long after this, all four of them are headed in Smiley’s ship towards the wormhole. Apparently, they didn’t even need the phase shifter; instead Jadzia and Smiley figured out a way to harness the transdimensional energy of the wormhole to combine with the transporters on the ship into creating a stable portal for them all to venture through. 

Several of Odo’s appendages have grown back to their full size, waving outside of the ship like they were when the ship first approached the station, except this time the tentacles are helping drag along a chunk of the station that wouldn’t fit aboard the ship -- an energy source to power the transporters and the computer mainframe to handle the calculations.

“If the boundary between universes is a sheet of ice separating water and air, and we’re currently trapped in the ice between the two mirrored realities, then the wormhole is like crack in that ice. Quark and I will fly through it back into the world of the living, and everyone else will dissipate back to… wherever you’re supposed to go when you die.”

Several of Odo’s smaller interior appendages wrap around Brunt’s body, which Quark had insisted come with. Just in case.

“One minute you say we’re trapped between windowpanes and now this place is a sheet of ice? You need to work on your metaphors.” Quark complains, but it’s good-natured this time.

The remaining appendage of Odo’s curls around Quark’s arm. It loops down to intertwine down with his fingers, where it has remained since Odo and Quark walked back from the bar together to meet up with the others. 

_This is what it would feel like_ , Quark thinks, _if Odo knew he loved me._

“Then when we’re in my universe, I can hack the teleporters like I’ve done before to send you back to your universe. The gap will have closed behind us. All will be right again.”

“If you say so.”

“If we’re alive, it will be.”

\---

The black void of the wormhole, a blinding blue light, then the deatomization of the transporter.

Quark stumbles out from a transporter pad in Ops. He pats his arms, his chest, his lobes -- all still there like they always have been. Alive. He blinks and looks around. The lights are brighter than they were on the station he came from, but all the equipment is blessedly intact and appears to be functioning normally.

Two ears and a head pop up from the Engineering pit. “Nikel? Is that you again? Just because I mentioned that the station’s silence at night creeps me out sometimes, does _not_ mean it’s cool to play pranks when I’m on night shift. I went through the same defensive training at the Academy you did and -- Oh.”

Nog cuts off as he notices Quark.

“I haven’t been gone long, have I?” Quark says. Nog should be on a ship headed to the Delta Quadrant by now.

“ _Uncle_ , is that really you?” Nog breathes, tears in his eyes, and he runs towards Quark, enveloping Quark in a tight hug before he can object. “You died. I have a disc of your body in my quarters.”

“Not so tight! Careful.” Quark squirms to ease the pressure off his burnt skin, but then finds himself relaxing into the embrace with deep-seated relief. His knees buckle a little. He grabs tighter onto the boy hugging him. His nephew.

“I thought I’d never see you again.”

This Nog isn’t trying to use him as bait or pointing a phaser at him. This Nog isn’t indifferent to his absence, or off to greener swamps, at least not yet. This Nog _missed_ him. He is as relieved that Quark is back as Quark himself is. This Nog is his family.

Nog releases Quark to meet his eyes with a serious look. “There’s someone else you should visit.”

“I know.”

\---

Like Ops, the station hallways are bright, clean, and functional. Everything is in its place: no smashed walls, no broken lights, no exposed wiring. No strange sounds of monsters lurking the halls or enemies waiting to ambush him.

Fatigue fading somewhat as he drinks it all in, Quark breathes deeply. Even the air smells right.

However, he slows as he approaches the place towards which he’s headed, a rush in his stomach belying his nerves. Maybe he should go to the infirmary first. Maybe he should change into more suitable clothes than the rags these have become. Ugh, maybe he should take a _shower_ \--

But then Quark catches sight of the office beyond the doorway and his speeding pulse catches in his throat.

There are padds everywhere -- smashed into pieces on the ground, stacks knocked over in the wake of an angry fit, and in the middle of all the chaos crouches a familiar person, broken and diminished by his own pain.

It’s the aftermath of the battle in Ops all over again; a rage of destruction dwindling into an underlying heartbreak, bitter and twisted and spent. 

Maybe the various versions of the two of them, of Quark and Odo, are not so different after all. Maybe love is a constant between universes, however varied it is in the way it unfolds.

Quark clears his throat. Then he locks eyes with the person he was afraid he’d have to do without.

“Miss me?” Quark says to the shocked Odo in front of him, and his heart beats in delicious anticipation: 

_With you, I’m home_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re frustrated that the scene cuts off here, I recommend rereading the ending to [The Case of the Caged Heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7540681). ^_^ Yes, it’s the sequel. I’ll stop pretending now either that that’s a surprise or that anyone remembers I said I was going to write this fic like... uuuuhhh.... two years ago??? Damn. Anyway, I finally did it!
> 
> If you’re worried about mirror!Brunt, my headcanon is that anyone already dead who is “killed” in that gap universe will be automatically freed back into their afterlife, so really only Quark and Smiley needed to find a way home, everyone else would have been fine eventually. 
> 
> Don’t ask me about the “science” in this, or metaphysics, or about gaping plot holes I’m sure are present... Or rather, you’re quite welcome to! but don’t expect a satisfying answer. heh. I tried!


End file.
